Jimmy, how do you plead?

Talk about it

GRAND FORKS — Jimmy Baldwin, the onetime homeless resident of Aspen, Colo., who received a one-way bus ticket to North Dakota last week, has found room and board in Williston — in the Williams County Jail.

He is scheduled to appear this morning in Williston Municipal Court on a charge of disorderly conduct, stemming from his arrest Friday after he allegedly urinated on the front of Whispers, a strip club.

To be fair, people in Aspen had warned that Baldwin, 32, has had trouble with “impulse control,” which led to several run-ins with the law in that city.

But “since he’s been in custody, everything’s been fine,” Williston Police Lt. David Belisle said Wednesday.

Baldwin, 32, originally from California, was facing prosecution in Aspen last week for trespassing when people there arranged for him to try his luck in another place. An anonymous donor provided nearly $200 for the director of an Aspen homeless shelter to buy Jimmy a one-way bus ticket.

He said he wanted to go to Williston. He had heard from a friend that there was work there in the oilfields.

The friend may not have mentioned the acute shortage of housing in western North Dakota, or a lack of patience with people who struggle with “impulse control.”

Aspen’s farewell gift to Baldwin did not sit well with many North Dakotans, who flooded the Aspen Daily News with more than 70 angry letters to the editor decrying Aspen’s “using their state as a dumping ground for unwanted citizens,” the newspaper reported.

His arrival in Williston didn’t go so well either.

Shirtless and relieving himself on the sidewalk outside the strip club’s entrance, he was arrested about 7 p.m. Friday, cited for disorderly conduct, ordered to stay away from Whispers and another strip club next door, Heartbreakers, and released, police said.

Haga is a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

Tags: jimmy baldwin, second chance, news, williston, aspen, colorado